H. G. Wells The Sleeper Awakes

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House, and a mass of new fabric with cranes and other building machines going to and fro upon it projected to
the left of the white pile.
The moving ways that ran across this area had been restored, albeit for once running under the open sky.
These were the ways that Graham had seen from the little balcony in the hour of his awakening, not nine days
since, and the hall of his Trance had been on the further side, where now shapeless piles of smashed and
shattered masonry were heaped together.
It was already high day and the sun was shining brightly. Out of their tall caverns of blue electric light came
the swift ways crowded with multitudes of people, who poured off them and gathered ever denser over the
wreckage and confusion of the ruins. The air was full of their shouting, and they were pressing and swaying
towards the central building. For the most part that shouting mass consisted of shapeless swarms, but here and
there Graham could see that a rude discipline struggled to establish itself. And every voice clamoured for
order in the chaos. "To your wards! Every man to his ward!"
The cable carried them into a hall which Graham recognised as the ante-chamber to the Hall of the Atlas,
about the gallery of which he had walked days ago with Howard to show himself to the Vanished Council, an
hour from his awakening. Now the place was empty except for two cable attendants. These men seemed
hugely astonished to recognise the Sleeper in the man who swung down from the cross seat.
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"Where is Ostrog?" he demanded. "I must see Ostrog forthwith. He has disobeyed me. I have come back to
take things out of his hands." Without waiting for Asano, he went straight across the place, ascended the steps
at the further end, and, pulling the curtain aside, found himself facing the perpetually labouring Titan.
The hall was empty. Its appearance had changed very greatly since his first sight of it. It had suffered serious
injury in the violent struggle of the first outbreak. On the right hand side of the great figure the upper half of
the wall had been torn away for nearly two hundred feet of its length, and a sheet of the same glassy film that
had enclosed Graham at his awakening had been drawn across the gap. This deadened, but did not altogether
exclude the roar of the people outside. "Wards! Wards! Wards!" they seemed to be saying. Through it there
were visible the beams and supports of metal scaffoldings that rose and fell according to the requirements of a
great crowd of workmen. An idle building machine, with lank arms of red painted metal stretched gauntly
across this green tinted picture. On it were still a number of workmen staring at the crowd below. For a
moment he stood regarding these things, and Asano overtook him.
"Ostrog," said Asano, "will be in the small offices beyond there." The little man looked livid now and his eyes
searched Graham's face.
They had scarcely advanced ten paces from the curtain before a little panel to the left of the Atlas rolled up,
and Ostrog, accompanied by Lincoln and followed by two black and yellow clad negroes, appeared crossing
the remote corner of the hall, towards a second panel that was raised and open. "Ostrog," shouted Graham,
and at the sound of his voice the little party turned astonished.
Ostrog said something to Lincoln and advanced alone.
Graham was the first to speak. His voice was loud and dictatorial. "What is this I hear?" he asked. "Are you
bringing negroes here--to keep the people down?"
"It is none too soon," said Ostrog. "They have been getting out of hand more and more, since the revolt. I
under-estimated--"
"Do you mean that these infernal negroes are on the way?"
"On the way. As it is, you have seen the people--outside?"
"No wonder! But--after what was said. You have taken too much on yourself, Ostrog."
Ostrog said nothing, but drew nearer.
"These negroes must not come to London," said Graham. "I am Master and they shall not come."
Ostrog glanced at Lincoln, who at once came towards them with his two attendants close behind him. "Why
not?" asked Ostrog.
"White men must be mastered by white men. Besides--"
"The negroes are only an instrument."
"But that is not the question. I am the Master. I mean to be the Master. And I tell you these negroes shall not
come."
"The people--"
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"I believe in the people."
"Because you are an anachronism. You are a man out of the Past--an accident. You are Owner perhaps of the
world. Nominally--legally. But you are not Master. You do not know enough to be Master."
He glanced at Lincoln again. "I know now what you think--I can guess something of what you mean to do.
Even now it is not too late to warn you. You dream of human equality--of some sort of socialistic order--you
have all those worn-out dreams of the nineteenth century fresh and vivid in your mind, and you would rule
this age that you do not understand."
"Listen!" said Graham. "You can hear it--a sound like the sea. Not voices--but a voice. Do you altogether
understand?"
"We taught them that," said Ostrog.
"Perhaps. Can you teach them to forget it? But enough of this! These negroes must not come."
There was a pause and Ostrog looked him in the eyes.
"They will," he said.
"I forbid it," said Graham.
"They have started."
"I will not have it."
"No," said Ostrog. "Sorry as I am to follow the method of the Council--. For your own good--you must not
side with--Disorder. And now that you are here--. It was kind of you to come here."
Lincoln laid his hand on Graham's shoulder. Abruptly Graham realised the enormity of his blunder in coming
to the Council House. He turned towards the curtains that separated the hall from the ante-chamber. The
clutching hand of Asano intervened. In another moment Lincoln had grasped Graham's cloak.
He turned and struck at Lincoln's face, and incontinently a negro had him by collar and arm. He wrenched
himself away, his sleeve tore noisily, and he stumbled back, to be tripped by the other attendant. Then he
struck the ground heavily and he was staring at the distant ceiling of the hall.
He shouted, rolled over, struggling fiercely, clutched an attendant's leg and threw him headlong, and struggled
to his feet.
Lincoln appeared before him, went down heavily again with a blow under the point of the jaw and lay still.
Graham made two strides, stumbled. And then Ostrog's arm was round his neck, he was pulled over
backward, fell heavily, and his arms were pinned to the ground. After a few violent efforts he ceased to
struggle and lay staring at Ostrog's heaving throat.
"You--are--a prisoner," panted Ostrog, exulting. "You--were rather a fool--to come back."
Graham turned his head about and perceived through the irregular green window in the walls of the hall the
men who had been working the building cranes gesticulating excitedly to the people below them. They had
seen!
CHAPTER XXII 126 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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